December 7, 2007

Can Do

I have got to see this documentary:

The Pervert's Guide works best when Zizek treads lightly and moves nimbly, engaging in capsule analyses that offer opportunities for quasi-desultory philosophical speculation. Of David Fincher's Fight Club (1999), he wonders in regard to Edward Norton's self-flagellation if "in order to attack the enemy you first have to beat the shit out of yourself." And with respect to Francis Ford Coppola's The Conversation (1974), which Zizek discusses at some length while sitting, fully clothed, on a toilet, contemplating the flushing mechanism, he ponders the notion that "the eye is the window to the soul," asking: "But what if there is no soul? What if the eye is simply a window to the abyss of the netherworld?" At any given screening, half of those in attendance are likely to lean forward, trying to figure out where they stand on such conjectures, while the rest are likely to lean back, trying to figure out what Zizek is doing on the can.

Plenty more at N+1. I got a screener of Astra Taylor's documentary ages ago, but does anyone think to send a copy of this one? No, they do not.

To repeat something I've said before: It is time for someone to create the Zizek Movie Data Base. We have The Legend of Rita, a fictional film based on the Baader-Meinhof gang, arriving via Netflix in the next couple of days, and I have to think Zizek must have written about it somewhere. With ZMDB, it would be easy to find out.

Seriously, this seems like a good project for an honor's thesis in film and new media. Somebody should run with it.